Why is Leadership needed more than ever?

For business schools, the term “management” or “administration” served us well in the twentieth century. We often used the word “science” along with both terms, such as administrative science or management science, to denote the scientific and rationalistic nature of business disciplines. The proliferation of MBAs and other Management degrees in business schools in the late twentieth century is a prime indication of the popularity and triumph of the rational management theories and the value of administrative science in businesses.

Then, things got very interesting at the turn of the century. The stability and constancy in the previous century were replaced by instability and uncertainty, and the word “disruption” seems to dominate the business language in the new century. Disruptive changes are so prevalent that 43 of the 100 companies on the Fortune 100 list were not there even ten years ago. Unfortunately, business schools have not caught up with the recent change.

Both administrative science or management science well suited for the stable and constant environment is not appropriate for the age of uncertainty and instability. The disruptive nature of business environments in the twenty-first century calls for different types of practices in the business environment. It calls for leadership rather than management. Of course, the concept of leadership is not new, but the issue has been that many business schools have not been focusing on helping students develop leadership. The difficulty with the transition is that leadership is vastly different from management (We will discuss this in our next blog) and to teach leadership effectively would require a shift in pedagogical paradigms.

This shift means business schools also need to catch up and modify what we teach our students and how we teach them. Nazareth’s School of Business and Leadership is leading this change by innovating its curriculum as well as delivery to make this shift possible. A series of blog posts in the future will explore in detail this shift in paradigm in business schools as well as how Nazareth College’s SBL plans to make this possible.

- Dr. Kenneth S. Rhee, Dean, School of Business and Leadership